


Well Before Midnight

by Palebluedot



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Fluff, M/M, New Year's Eve, Pillow Talk, i'm a little late but what can ya do, post-reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 13:25:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13249143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot/pseuds/Palebluedot
Summary: James is hardly sure where he was this time last year, but it was someplace far from here, and certainly colder, without Thomas's stockinged feet pressed up against his leg beneath their piled-on blankets.





	Well Before Midnight

Celebrating the new year the moment it arrives is a young man's tradition. Thomas and James are neither of them young men, so New Year's Eve finds them in their bed well before midnight. As they would on any ordinary night, they sit side by side with candles burning and books in hand, but the curtain falling over such an extraordinary year cannot be an ordinary night, so James's mind remains turned inwards rather than towards the words inked on the page before him. What a patchwork year it's been. What a violent, resplendent, _rug-pull_ of a year.

For so much of it, time was marked by the hours until the next battle, not the next dawn. James is hardly sure where he was this time last year, but it was someplace far from here, and certainly colder, without Thomas's stockinged feet pressed up against his leg beneath their piled-on blankets. This year, he lost a name and gained a life. James never once thought to count how many bullets, blades or blows could have made it his last. Then there he was, enveloped in a clutching embrace in a dusty field, and this wretched and bloody year sent him home. Thomas defines the year, surely. His presence and absence and return define James's _life._ All the same, he wonders wildly what the year's record would show — has he had more kisses or taken more lives?

Beside him, a candle extinguishes, and James is shaken from his thoughts, the warm and the dark both. Thomas leaves his book on his bedside table, then gently pulls James's from his hands.

At James's faint protest, Thomas offers only a smile. “You haven't turned that page in a quarter of an hour,” he explains.

“Well, perhaps I was just about to,” James protests lightly, and Thomas shakes his head fondly.

“I don't know why you think you can fool me after all this time. I _can_ tell when you're leagues away,” says Thomas, leaning over him to set James's book on his own bedside table. He reaches a little further to blow the candle flame into softly furling smoke before sitting upright again. All this time, James thinks. Is that a few blissful months, or ten bitter years? But it's too heavy a question to put to so sweet a sentiment, so James merely mutters something about what a rude man he shares his bed with, and grins when that man gives his shoulder a pointed, playful nudge.

“Suppose this is goodnight, then,” James says, still half-trying for a playacted grumble.

“I suppose it is,” Thomas replies, smiling very prettily indeed in the moonlit dark. He could hardly ask for a kiss goodnight more plainly, so James leans in until he feels that smile on his own. It's soft, ritual, affectionate and brief. Thomas's nose still brushes his when it's over.

“The last kiss of the old year,” Thomas murmurs wistfully. James hadn't even thought of that. He remembers his last belated realization that a kiss not dwelled upon was a last one, and surges forwards again, fixing his mouth to Thomas's not ungently, but firmly, with a hand cupping his cheek for good measure. After an initial and endearing muffled noise of surprise, Thomas melts. In its time, the kiss grows lazy, then spare, then they are once more forehead to forehead, nose to nose. “Point taken,” Thomas laughs, a bit breathless, and pecks James's slightly-sheepish cheek before lying down — another gift picked from the pocket of the dying year.

James joins him shortly, laying his head on the same pillow and turning it towards him, their ankles interlocked. With his hands folded under his head, Thomas wears the moonlight wonderfully. A year from now, James knows he'll remember how he spent tonight. He'll end the coming year the way he's started to begin it, he hopes, and fill the long middle with more of the same. A string of new years appears to him then, links on a chain. Growing older in this bed. Shifting the balance a little more as the number grows towards, then past, ten.

“Penny for your thoughts?” murmurs Thomas, swallowing a yawn. James wonders how long he's been quiet.

“It'll be our first, you know,” he says, reaching out and rubbing his thumb over Thomas's cheekbone.

There's a small sadness in the knowing curve of Thomas's mouth. “New Year's Day?”

James isn't sure whether to nod or shake his head. The words feel too big for his tongue. On the last night of any other year he's known, they'd feel too hopeful, too. “Full year together,” he says, and he's close enough to see Thomas's eyes widen in understanding, even in the dark. “A new year's on its way, and we'll see it through from start to finish, you and I, I swear it. If you care to,” he finishes, somewhat awkwardly. To say it out loud does not feel like tempting fate. He knows the strength of the lock on their door, and as the look of quiet, unworried joy on Thomas's face tells it, so does he.

“A full year together,” Thomas repeats in a voice edged with awe. “My, my. What a strange luxury. Whatever shall we do with the time?”

Time, James knows, is not something Thomas is yet accustomed to having to spare or command. Maybe this year, he'll grow used to it. “Oh, I've an idea or two you may like,” James assures him, and the hand on Thomas's cheek slips beneath the covers and finds his waist.

Thomas mirrors the motion and noses closer on the pillow. “Have you?”

“Mhm,” James hums. On a whim, he kisses the tip of Thomas's nose, making his eyes crinkle. James crinkles back. “Haven't you?”

“I'll tell you in the morning,” Thomas says, and kisses him again. The man he loves keeps his word, James knows, so he adds listening to Thomas's plans to the steadily-growing list of things he has to look forward to upon the changing of the year. There's still time to share in the old year yet, though, so James pulls Thomas to him, and doesn't move more than half a bed's width away until they wake to a wintry sun.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm aware this has gone up well *after* midnight, but oh well. Wishing all of you a wonderful 2018!
> 
> Comments are love <3


End file.
